Following our conversation at the last task force meeting, the group focused on regulation. First, they initiated a discussion of the general theory of regulation, followed by a look at regulation in several specific areas – competition policy, natural monopolies like utilities, telecom, financial markets (banking, securities), labor market, and product market (safety, consumer protection) , and environmental regulation. The group also considered certain aspects of the regulatory process, and perhaps the political economy of regulation (the problems of regulatory capture). Many of the issues that came up in our discussion of property rights were also relevant here – e.g. that it is not just the dejure regulations, but the de facto regulations that matter; just as implicit or explicit property rights are embedded in many areas, so too for regulation (immigration bills can, for instance, be viewed as “regulating” immigration); we want to consider distributive effects of regulation, as well as the special problems of regulating in a “large” economy, with limited central control.
Indeed, it is difficult to define precisely the boundaries of regulation. Tax policy (and even budget policy) has effects that are akin to regulation. The private sector engages in regulation (self-regulation, e.g. setting of standards).
Finally, increasingly the international regime (e.g. WTO and other trade agreements) is circumscribing policy autonomy. A key issue is how these restricts China’s policy space, and how China best manage within these restrictions
This is a particularly opportune time for taking up these issues, as the problems of inadequate regulation in America’s financial system – and its enormous consequences – become apparent. There is now an active debate in the United States, a growing consensus that it may have gone too far down the path of deregulation.
Partners
- Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester
Manchester, United Kingdom
- Heping Cao
Task Force Member
Deputy Dean of School of Economics
Peking University - Fang Lee Cooke
Task Force Member
Professor of HRM and Chinese Studies, Deputy Head of School (Research and Innovation)
RMIT School of Management - Zhiyuan Cui
Task Force Member
Professor, Public Policy and Management
Tsinghua University - Jun Fu
Task Force Member
Deputy Dean of School of Government
Peking University - James Galbraith
Task Force Member
Professor of Government, LBJ School of Public Affairs
University of Texas - Qin Gao
Task Force Member
Assistant Professor
Fordham University - Stephany Griffith-Jones
Task Force Member
Financial Markets Program Director
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) - Antara Haldar
Task Force Member
PhD Student
Columbia University - Roselyn Hseuh
Task Force Member
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Temple University - Haizhou Huang
Task Force Member
Senior Economist, Research Department
International Monetary Fund
- Deming Huo
Task Force Member
Professor
Peking University - Athar Hussain
Task Force Member
Deputy Director, Asia Research Centre
London School of Economics - Mo Ji
Task Force Member
PhD Candidate
Columbia University - David Kennedy
Task Force Chair
Professor
Harvard Law School - Ling Li
Task Force Member
Senior Deputy Director
China Center for Economic Research, Peking University - Akbar Noman
Task Force Member
Senior Policy Fellow
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) - Roy Prosterman
Task Force Member
Emeritus Professor of Law
University of Washington - Ye Qi
Task Force Member
Professor of Environmental Policy, School of Public Policy and Management
Tsinghua University - Carl Riskin
Task Force Member
Professor of Economics
The Graduate Center, City University of New York - Francesco Saraceno
Task Force Member
Professor
Sciences Po Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris
- Francis Snyder
Task Force Member
Professor, Law Department
London School of Economics - Joseph Stiglitz
Task Force Chair
President
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) - Xifang Sun
Task Force Member
Assistant Professor, Deparment of Economics
Seoul National University - Jin Yeu Tsou
Task Force Member
Director, Center for Housing Innovations
The Chinese University of Hong Kong - Xiaobing Wang
Task Force Member
Lecturer
University of Manchester - Christine Wong
Task Force Member
Senior Fellow in Contemporary Chinese Studies
University of Oxford - Jianyue Xu
Task Force Member
PhD Student
University of Manchester - Jintao Xu
Task Force Member
Professor of Natural Resource Economics
Department of Environmental Sciences
Peking University - Liqing Zhang
Task Force Member
Dean of School of Finance
Central University of Finance and Economics – Beijing - Zhong Zhang
Task Force Member
PhD Candidate
University of Manchester